Happy Monday! I hope you all made it in safe this morning and are geared up for the final week of 2009! I wanted to share another free resource I ran across this morning on a site called 100+ Sites to Download Everything Online.
Learn Out Loud. This is a one-stop destination for video and audio learning resources. You can browse through over 15,000 educational audio books MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos. The site also contains various free resources which can be found by clicking this link: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video#directory
Use for a whole class assignment, enrichment opportunities or audio books for special education students. Many of the audio downloads can be put onto a student/teacher’s iPod, MP3 player or phone! They may be also posted as links on your own webpage or blog for students to access in the media center, at home or the local library.
Samples:
- I Have a Dream Spea (audio & video)
- Romeo & Juliet (audio, RSS Feed)
- General Biology (iTunes & video)
Monday, December 14, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Useful Google Tools from "The Lab"
I came across a couple useful Google tools today while visiting a great site (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/). These would be useful for teachers and students alike – they are pretty cool so check them out!!
Image Swirl - http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/
Google Image Swirl organizes image search results based on their visual and semantic similarity and presents them in an intuitive exploratory interface. To use Image Swirl, just enter your search term as you would in the regular image search service. The results of your search will be displayed in a grid similar to that with which you're probably familiar. Click any image in the grid a web of more, related, images will appear. Click an image in the web and another web of images will appear.
Educational Use: Images for PowerPoints or to show students examples of concepts. It may also be used as a writing prompt starter.
Google Squared - http://www.google.com/squared
Fetch and organize facts from across the web. Google Squared automatically constructs a table of facts about any category you specify. Google Squared displays the results of a search in a spreadsheet format. This spreadsheet format allows users to quickly compare the results of a search. Users can alter the fields in the spreadsheet to further refine a search. For example, I searched using the term "US Civil War," the results were displayed in a spreadsheet containing the columns "image," "description," "date," and "result." I then eliminated the "result" column and replaced it with "location." The new "location" column displayed results based on location.
Educational Use: Easy organization for students and teachers to compare concepts, people, properties, animals, etc.
Image Swirl - http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/
Google Image Swirl organizes image search results based on their visual and semantic similarity and presents them in an intuitive exploratory interface. To use Image Swirl, just enter your search term as you would in the regular image search service. The results of your search will be displayed in a grid similar to that with which you're probably familiar. Click any image in the grid a web of more, related, images will appear. Click an image in the web and another web of images will appear.
Educational Use: Images for PowerPoints or to show students examples of concepts. It may also be used as a writing prompt starter.
Google Squared - http://www.google.com/squared
Fetch and organize facts from across the web. Google Squared automatically constructs a table of facts about any category you specify. Google Squared displays the results of a search in a spreadsheet format. This spreadsheet format allows users to quickly compare the results of a search. Users can alter the fields in the spreadsheet to further refine a search. For example, I searched using the term "US Civil War," the results were displayed in a spreadsheet containing the columns "image," "description," "date," and "result." I then eliminated the "result" column and replaced it with "location." The new "location" column displayed results based on location.
Educational Use: Easy organization for students and teachers to compare concepts, people, properties, animals, etc.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Upcoming PLC Dates
Below are the upcoming PLC and early out dates for you to get on your calendar. More information regarding the dates for technology (from Bob) and curriculum (from ICC team) will come at a later time. Enjoy your Thanksgiving break and continue to keep the Redd family in your thoughts and prayers.
11.25 Technology Self-Directed Professional Development – one hour PLC/PD time as teachers have a shortened day prior to the holiday break ----2:30 is the official release time
12.02 Technology Professional Development – as directed and guided by Bob Deter
12.09 Building PLCs
12.16 No early dismissal due to 12.18 holiday dismissal
12.18 2 hour dismissal - Teachers can leave 15 minutes after students are gone
01.06 Curriculum PLCs – Grade span work with MISIC's standards & benchmarks
01.13 Curriculum PLCs – Grade span work continued
01.20 Building PLCs
01.27 Building PLCs
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
K-5 Math Update
Inman & Washington Teachers,
This email is to update the K-5 teachers regarding our math adoption progress. As Mr. Schmidt mentioned during his budget meetings and I mentioned to teachers at the end of our February 16th PD, math will be a two-year adoption process.
This week, our secondary has approved adopting Holt's textbook series and resources for grades 6th, 7th, 8th, Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry. We will be doing a full adoption at the middle school and phasing in textbooks at the high school level.
What does that mean for K-5? Proposal costs at the secondary level and initial quotes from elementary series indicate we will be able to adopt a series this spring/summer and phase in the resources over two years:
2009-10: DK/Kindergarten - 2nd grade; MS; Alg I, Alg II, Geometry (limited books at HS level)
2010-11: 3rd grade - 5th grade (and additional HS courses & textbooks)
What do we need to do now? Although math curriculum team members (Nielsen, Dunn, Kelly, Davis/Erickson, Haufle, Fehring/Linn) will meet with me in April during PLC time, I do need all classroom teachers to be using the resources in hand and discussing pros and cons of each during team time. I have listed the three series we have narrowed it down to and online links you may access for more information. If you do not have the materials in hand (or a team member), please let me know as soon as possible. I'm still working with the other two reps to get onsite demos as we have had conflicts with prior dates.
Investigation (Scott Foresman) - demo date will be the week after Spring Break - TBA
http://investigations.scottforesman.com/
Saxon - demo already given
http://saxonpublishers.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/sxnm_home
Everyday Math (Wright/McGraw-Hill) - demo date still in the works
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/
Thank you for your work, flexibility and dedication to the process!! Questions - let me know.
He who laughs, lasts
DB
****************************************
Doug Barry
http://www.redoakschooldistrict.com
712.623.6630
****************************************
This email is to update the K-5 teachers regarding our math adoption progress. As Mr. Schmidt mentioned during his budget meetings and I mentioned to teachers at the end of our February 16th PD, math will be a two-year adoption process.
This week, our secondary has approved adopting Holt's textbook series and resources for grades 6th, 7th, 8th, Algebra I, Algebra II and Geometry. We will be doing a full adoption at the middle school and phasing in textbooks at the high school level.
What does that mean for K-5? Proposal costs at the secondary level and initial quotes from elementary series indicate we will be able to adopt a series this spring/summer and phase in the resources over two years:
2009-10: DK/Kindergarten - 2nd grade; MS; Alg I, Alg II, Geometry (limited books at HS level)
2010-11: 3rd grade - 5th grade (and additional HS courses & textbooks)
What do we need to do now? Although math curriculum team members (Nielsen, Dunn, Kelly, Davis/Erickson, Haufle, Fehring/Linn) will meet with me in April during PLC time, I do need all classroom teachers to be using the resources in hand and discussing pros and cons of each during team time. I have listed the three series we have narrowed it down to and online links you may access for more information. If you do not have the materials in hand (or a team member), please let me know as soon as possible. I'm still working with the other two reps to get onsite demos as we have had conflicts with prior dates.
Investigation (Scott Foresman) - demo date will be the week after Spring Break - TBA
http://investigations.scottforesman.com/
Saxon - demo already given
http://saxonpublishers.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/sxnm_home
Everyday Math (Wright/McGraw-Hill) - demo date still in the works
http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/
Thank you for your work, flexibility and dedication to the process!! Questions - let me know.
He who laughs, lasts
DB
****************************************
Doug Barry
http://www.redoakschooldistrict.com
712.623.6630
****************************************
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